Would Superman ever give up his Clark Kent ID?

[RawShark]

Realistically, I know that the Superman characters don't age.
Chances are Supes, Clark, Lois, Lex and heck, even Jimmy will all still be around the same age they are now when you and I are worm-food.

But hippotetically, Superman himself does not age, or ages at a very slow rate. So... once all his contemporaries have passed away, do you think he would give up the "charade" of being Clark Kent and just be the "all-powerful" being he has the potential of being?

Would his "giving up" this contact with humanity change him?

Would he then take it upon himself to save humanity from itself at all costs?

Would a Miracle/Marvel-Man scenario be forseeable?

[Forsaken_One]

Hypothetically... I doubt it. If by ID you mean giving up his ID like someone else does when going into witness protection services, changing the name and address and so on but basically being the same person, that's possible. If, however, you mean forsaking his humanity and living in the Fortress of Solitude or something like he did in Kingdom Come, I very much doubt it for post-Crisis Superman. Post-Crisis Superman was raised as Clark Kent for quite some time before his powers came into being, as such he'd see himself as Clark Kent and put on Superman in order to protect that identity, not visa versa. He was Clark Kent in his formative years up though mid to late teens so I'd guess he would think of himself as "Clark Kent" the same way any of us think of ourselves by our own names. Pre-Crisis... that's more likely I think (and one of the reasons I didn't mind Ross' portrayal of Superman in Kingdom Come, he seemed to be taking a lot from Pre-Crisis). Pre-Crisis he's always had his powers, always been seperate from, better than, and above humanity. That could leave a person more disasociated with his human name. Plus iirc pre-Crisis Superman didn't have his parents alive for most of his life, that'd help.

[RawShark]

Good points,

but wouldn't people start wondering why this Clark Kent guy never ages at some point?

Or would it be a "Highlander" sort of situation where every few generations he'd adopt a new "human" identity? Even to the point of making it "related" to the prior ones.

I know this is all hypothetical (I can never spell that word right, can I?), and that there will probably never be any set answers, but hypthetically (see!) speaking, this could make for an interesting Elseworlds one-shot.

Also. I've never read the Kamandi special where an old Superman makes an appearance, was this touched upon in that book?

[Forsaken_One]

Speaking hypothetically, because as you said this will never happen outside of an Elseworlds:

1) It's possible they won't. In both Superman Generations and Kingdom Come (both Elseworlds, obviously not cannon) Superman continued to age but slower and slower as he got older. As such when he was 80 he looked like he was 60 or so; something quite possible to pass off as just being rather fit for his age. Granted after a couple hundred of years it might be noticed, but that's assuming he's been making young friends or something in that time because otherwise everyone'd be dead by that point and he wouldn't have to worry about anyone pointing him out. Well, assuming he didn't try to get Social Security or something.

2) Yeah, that's possible. Easier in the past like Highlander had, when there was no state issued ID, but identity fraud is easy enough that I doubt creating a new one wouldn't be a problem.

3) Yeah, I use dictionary.com or google.com when I can't figure out a word. Dictionary.com if I know it's close, google.com if I don't think it's anywhere close. Both work rather well I've found and you discover all sorts of new meanings using dictionary.com. It also helps that I read alot; my spelling before I started reading quite a bit was just... horrible. Absolutely horrible.

4) I have no idea, I haven't seen that one.

[Alan2099]

Superman has tried things like that before, both in Elseworlds and core storylines. It doesn't stick. He needs the secret ID. It gives him a chance to kickbacka nd relax everyonce in a while and not be "ON" 24/7. Also, without regualr interaction witht he little people, it would be easy for him to lose track of exactly why he's doing what he's doing.

[comicstar100]

I'm not going into length but I remember a Superman: TAS episode where he had to pretend Clark was dead and he said "Superman is what I can do Clark Kent is who I am."